Companies
Here are some company-specific notes. The following notes came from dozens of phone calls with current and former Dropbox employees, Blind, Levels, and other sources.
Note that I chose Dropbox, and am strongly happy with my choice, so I'm obviously biased. But I made sure to keep as objective as possible.
I will slowly fill this page with other companies I interviewed for. Feel free to a submit a PR for yours.
IMPORTANT: I am NOT legally/officially representing any of these companies or claiming it's valid. It's simply an aggregation of what I've seen in public forums and asking around. It is meant to give you a rough sketch and opinion of culture within these companies. All information obtained here was non-proprietary gathered BEFORE employment at these companies, and did not come from an official company source.
Dropbox
Pros
WLB: Dropbox is known for its amazing WLB. Most teams have a very relaxed culture. There are few deadlines and low expectations compared to most startups and even other big tech.
Cross-Team: If you so choose, you are empowered to implement new concepts, frameworks, refactors, even though they are not directly the responsibility of your team. As long as other engineers agree with your approach, management won't block you from making such changes. Additionally, if you want to switch teams, it's pretty trivial
Little Competition/Politics: At least as an IC, there is very little politics and competition for positions.
Great Comp: You can expect $300-$500k as a senior engineer at Dropbox and up to $1M as Staff and above. For reference, I stagnated at $180k in startup world, and now make over double that. See Levels for more details. Comp is fairly accurate from my personal experience. Comp is very much on par with FAANGs.
Great engineering culture: They highly value code quality, collaboration, and keeping up to date with community standards
Modern Tech Stack: React, Redux, Typescript on the FE (and I believe Python, Go, and Rust on the BE). Especially in frontend, Dropbox keeps up with the latest community standards
Friendly: Compared to other companies I interviewed with, Dropbox has very friendly folks. Everyone I spoke to (biased and unbiased) noted the collaborative culture. Colleagues will hang with you outside of work
Great for Parents: Dropbox gives great partenal leave, $25k in adoption assistance, $5k in babysitter credits, fertility assitance. And of course the great WLB.
Cons
As I'm working at Dropbox now will omit these. But clearly the pros outweigh them ;)
Verdict
Obviously, I chose Dropbox as my employer, so I'm biased. But I'd say the pros definitely outweight the cons. As someone who in interested in frontend tech infrastructure, this is a great environment to work.
Perks
Some of the perks that stood out
The health care is more or less standard across tech companies. Nothing too special. Anthem PPO 250 or HDPD 2800 ($1400 contributions)
$6k 401k match
$7k to spend on whatever “wellness” you want (gym, desk, coffeemaker, you name it)
20 vacation days, 11 holiday, 14 Fridays off (gotta confirm how this works)
$25k per child adoption support
4 volunteer days
$2k gift match to nonprofits)
Free Dropbox Basic for friends
Nominate a Non Profit for a Dropbox business account
Remote Work
Dropbox is “virtual first”. You don’t have an assigned office. You can work from anywhere in the US (note it does affect your salary based on city). And I think a few months outside the country (they were vague). There is a list of like 10 countries you can work from permanently, but expect much less $
Dropbox has “Studios” where you can work out of. But they’re nowhere near as nice as pre-COVID offices with free 3 star Michelin food. You may cowork out of studios, or meet with your team occasionally.
Dropbox has a range of salary bands adjusted for location. If you relocate somewhere permanently, then eventually they'll reassign your salary band accordingly.
You may work anywher in the US, as there are no required in person meetings. Additionally, Dropbox has a list of approved locations in which the company is registered as an employer.
This includes:
Australia
Canada
France
Germany
Ireland
Israel
Japan
Netherlands
Singapore
Sweden
US
UK
You are allowed to take short/medium term trips working from elsewhere in the world! Exactly how long you can spend somewhere before you change your residency is probably the fuzzy part. I've gotten various info that the remote work can range 1-3 mo.
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